


Some Of Us Are Born To Die

by rhythmicroman



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: (for some of it), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Bisexuality, Brotherly Angst, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gay Male Character, Ghoulification, Ghouls, Lesbian Character, M/M, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Canon, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, bc I said so, except his brother, fahrenheit is a lesbian, hancock and fahrenheit are mlm/wlw solidarity, hancock is bi, sosu is gay, the straights can have mayor mcdonough, the whole "no ghouls in diamond city" racism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 15:32:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13216740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhythmicroman/pseuds/rhythmicroman
Summary: Everyone told John that soulmarks were pretty straightforward. You get a mark on your wrist, it says the first thing your soulmate will ever say, it's all hunky dory from there.Nobody told him they'd tell him his fate, too.On his eighteenth birthday, John McDonough is left staring at his wrist in the dark - at the pretty cursive letters spelling "You're a ghoul?" across his skin.At least he's prepared for the future (he thinks).





	1. Playing Pretend

**Author's Note:**

> SO LIKE I was reading soulmate fics and (to my knowledge) nobody had used this idea?? So here you go folks
> 
> This first chapter is just setting up the whole Diamond City scenario and Mayor McDonough being a fucking twat

When John’s soulmark appeared at age 18, he’d stroked his wrist and muttered that it couldn’t possibly be right.

The words “You’re a ghoul?” sat perfectly-printed on his inner wrist, in a beautiful cursive font he could barely read. Maybe he was misreading it – but he had no idea what he could possibly be mistaking for ‘ghoul’.

His brother had snorted and shoved him, and showed his bigger wrist to him – something in thick computer print, formal and uniform, completely normal. He laughed and said “at least my soulmate can tell I’m human, Johnny”.

His father hadn’t been so kind about it, if kind was even the word. He’d tried scrubbing it off (much to John’s complaints) and just ended up scowling down at it.

“No son of mine, John,” he spoke slowly and calmly, “will ever be a ghoul.”

He didn’t show off his soulmark after that, not even when people asked. He’d fiddle with the dog collar around his wrist and say, smiling, that he’d never gotten one. He’d joyously announce that he was forever-alone, and the diamond city teens with too little patience to wait for their soulmates would crowd around him. He loved the attention, truly – but every time a new one spoke, he despised the sinking feeling at their unfamiliar words.

 

* * *

 

“I did it, John. It’s mine.”

His fingers twitched at his sides. He’d haphazardly strapped his shotgun to his back in his hurry, and he’d give anything to unbuckle it and just fucking shoot. His brother didn’t turn to him, just kept staring down at his city – at what used to be diamond city – as the disgusting lowlifes ripped each other to shreds.

“Stop it.” His voice was too quiet, too faded, and too shy for John McDonough. His brother simply smiled wider. “Please. You’re not like this. I thought you were different.”

“You thought wrong, Johnny.” His smile grew only crueller, eyes flicking over to his brother. His gaze slowly ran down his shoulder onto his covered wrist. “And you’ll leave too, if you know what’s good for you. After all,” he licked his lips, “one day you’ll be one of them.”

John raised his hand to cover his wrist, and snarled. “Fuck you. Fuck you and this damn city. You’re no better than father was.”

“And who said I’d ever pretend to be?” that cold, disgusting smile sent shudders down his spine. “Not all of us become horror, Johnathan. Some of us are born into it.”

Silence fell over them, if not for the distant screaming and struggling outside. A gun fired. Another one. Guilt welled up in his eyes and it took all he had to keep it from spilling.

“You’re not my fucking brother,” he’d muttered, before turning on his heel and storming out.


	2. Radioactive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whenever she turned her back she felt his wide eyes, green like envy, burn into the back of her skull. Radioactive, the other drifters called them. Radioactive, because they were warmer than fire and colder than ice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some gruesome ghoulification this chapter, though I tried to keep it as quick as possible lmao  
> Also some good ol fashioned platonic love w Johnny-boy and Fahrenheit, feat. cute sibling-y nicknames (and some not-so-sibling-y ones, too, but did we REALLY expect anything less from John?)
> 
> I'd also like to formally apologise for their collective potty-mouth. There's only so many times you can type the word "shit" without feeling a little like you're overdoing it.

When Fahrenheit had first met him, she hadn’t trusted him one bit.

He had all the swagger of a city kid, with the filthy tongue of a raider’s spawn; his hair, dirty and blonde, fell about his shoulders in tangles, and whenever she turned her back she felt his wide eyes, green like envy, burn into the back of her skull.

Radioactive, the other drifters called them. Radioactive, because they were warmer than fire and colder than ice.

She first spoke with him when they were both hired by the same guy, to raid some old abandoned vault by the outskirts of the commonwealth. She’d stopped for a smoke break, ducking under some rubble and sitting by a boarded-up door, and he’d followed her, sitting quietly beside her.

He was older than her by a few years, yet still significantly smaller than her, face and neck covered in dark freckles. His cheeks dimpled when he smiled - though it was more like a smirk, crooked and charming - and his voice rang out fairly clear, with the slight rasp of jet behind his words.

“Your name,” he started, licking his dry lips, “it’s somethin’ fancy, right? With a F.”

“Fahrenheit.” She barely glanced at him, turning instead to stare at the half-demolished walls. “It’s Fahrenheit. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Right, right.”

They’d never been apart since.

* * *

 

She first realised his “thing” for chems when she found him in the backroom of their hideout puffing jet he’d just dug out of some dead raider’s pocket.

Her nose scrunched up in disgust, subconsciously. “Dude, John, that’s a dead guy’s inhaler. You could get some disease off whatever killed him.”

He shrugged, rattling it gently, knees pulled up to his chest. “Beats bein’ sober,” he said decidedly, bringing it back up to his lips.

Fahrenheit’s eyebrows creased in concern, but she said nothing, instead opting to sit beside him. He’d stripped off his blood-soaked armour, now in nothing but the fancy, comfy shit that city-folk loved to parade around in – and that’s when she saw it.

A strip of skin on his wrist, a few shades paler than the rest of him, with those dreaded words on it; “You’re a ghoul?”

She only noticed she’d reached out to touch it when John was pulling away, jet inhaler dropped to the ground beside him, thumb tracing over the cursive print. His face momentarily contorted into a scowl, danger flashing in his eyes, before relaxing, eerily calm and expressionless.

Reaching for his jet, he looked up at her, eyes dark with thought. “An’ besides,” he finally continued, “’s not like it’ll matter for shit, anyways.”

* * *

 

She never said anything about the chems again.

Not when he was three inhalers in and half-conscious, not when he took full tins of mentats, not when he barely recognised her after a needle too much of psycho and one too many raider-fists to the temple.

She just stood and watched, and dreaded his future.

* * *

 

It was a few years after Goodneighbour’s coup that it happened.

In her defense, she’d been out with a few drifters, putting bullets through the skulls of some overenthusiastic supermutants – but it didn’t make it any better, when she came home to Daisy’s worried face.

Daisy didn’t need to start explaining. She already knew.

There was only one thing that John – John Hancock, now, a little broader and older and wiser than the jet-puffing John McDonough she’d known, though only a little – would worry about, and that was his future, his destiny. The destiny carved into his wrist by whatever cruel deity controlled it.

His eyes, though dark and cloudy, still screamed of the radioactivity she’d once known. The corners of his eyes and mouth were red and raw, skin peeling painfully, and dotted around his skin were fucking _holes,_ and _welts,_ and other shit she’d only seen on corpses and ghouls.

She couldn’t stop her gagging sob, her gloved hand cupping his jaw – and he winced, groaning as she moved his head, choking out a half-hearted laugh.

“Been a long time coming, eh, Fairy-Lights?”

He was the only one allowed to call her that – a horrible butchering of her name, which he’d muttered out one drunken evening and decided to stick with. He was just as horrible, announcing loudly to any dame she romanced that “cute little Fairy-Lights would never hurt a fly” – and they’d giggle cutely, and repeat it, over and over in a chorus.

It used to bring annoyance, but now it only brought pain, as she clutched to him for dear life. She knew, deep in her heart, that he’d survive, that the radiation would pull him through; but it didn’t make it hurt any less, watching him writhe and choke on his own irradiated blood.

* * *

 

It took a week of explaining to traders – and Nick, and the minutemen, and cute little Piper – why he couldn’t see them in person; a week of choking and gasping for air and yelling names in a strangled voice – _Fairy-Lights, Nicky, Pipes, anybody, please_ – before it finally stopped.

She walked in to find a ghoul, mouth dripping with green-tinted plasma, in place of her best friend.

She’d almost forgotten it was John, before he grinned – that charming, crooked grin, broken teeth and all, burnt skin dimpling at the sides of his mouth – and croaked out a low, broken, “hey, babes.”

She laughed, teary-eyed, stroked her thumb against the pale strip on his wrist, skin too rough to be familiar. “Don’t fucking call me that, John,” she grinned.

She supposed, as far as futures go, she may be a little lucky.


End file.
